In present day point-of-sale (POS) operations, the MICR indicia that are to appear on the check of a customer are added after the sale, and at a remote location (i.e., either at the bank, or in a separate, back room at the retail site).
For the first time, this invention seeks to eliminate the post-operative role of supplying the required MICR indicia on a check presented for POS payment at a retail establishment. Owing to its new function, machines now being designed by the present assignee of this invention must be able to encode and read MICR located in a specific field (i.e., the amount field) of the check, at the point-of-sale. Because of the precision required for MICR encoding, it is necessary to keep the encoding mechanism fine-tuned and immediately cease encoding checks if the mechanism degrades to the point that satisfactory characters cannot be encoded.
In a MICR encoder of the new machine, the MICR characters must be printed at a precise distance to the right edge of the check in order to place the MICR characters in the proper field site. In order to accomplish this, an optical sensor is provided to detect the edge of the check and stage it at a known location from the thermal, MICR print head. It then becomes a simple matter to advance the check by a stepper, drive and print motor a fixed number of step increments in order to start the printing sequence.
In addition, it is essential that the encoded MICR characters be verified after printing to assure their accuracy. The MICR indicia imprinted upon each check extend to each edge on the left and right of the check to within 0.31 inches. It becomes necessary, therefore, to provide an additional read head.
The performance of our MICR encoder can be influenced by the substrate (paper) characteristics. This diagnostic function can be used to match the printing parameters and performance to the particular substrate used at each customer location.
Performance of conventional MICR readers is determined by reading test documents printed to the extreme limits of the various check specifications. These performance tests have the limitation that the information obtained therefrom is a "go/no-go" assessment. Additionally, check print equipment is designed to print checks in specification. These check test documents are difficult for check printers to produce because they are typically printed to the very limits of specification. As a result, many of these test checks are in fact out of specification, causing many problems when they are used to assess as part of hardware performance assessment via diagnostics. Therefore, the present invention reflects the development of a diagnostic program that adjusts the print parameters of the MICR print head to tune the encoder so that the printed characters are always within specifications, and at their best possible level of performance. In addition, if the encoding cannot be accomplished satisfactorily, the encoder may be disabled, thus preventing defective MICR characters on checks which may lead to reading problems during subsequent check processing.
The diagnostic system of the invention provides an intelligent, closed loop system that adjusts and fine tunes the print system. In so doing, the diagnostic system may eliminate service calls by field service personnel. It also provides quick verification of system performance.
The MICR encoder/printer environment is unique because both the information to be encoded on the check and the results of the encoding operation are known. Consequently, based on a comparison of the two, inference may be drawn regarding the performance of the encoder, specifically with regard to developing out-of-spec printing trends. Because the magnetic "signature" of an E13B MICR character relative to its visual appearance is not readily apparent to an untrained observer, minor visual changes in an encoded character may result in that character being misread. When a character reading problem results in a reject (i.e., the character can not be recognized by the verifying circuity), the problem is minimal. Because the magnetic signatures of, for example, characters 2 and 5 are similar, certain printing abnormalities may result in the reading of a 2 for a 5 or vice versa. This is true of characters 1 and 7 as well. There are other less obvious "substitution" patterns know to those skilled in the art. The "proper" reading of an incorrect character leads to for more dire consequences than the simple rejection of a poorly printer character.
The MICR encoder/transaction printer of the present invention is provided with a unique system for capturing the verification results for all printed characters and symbols in a performance database. In the database, developing trends in the encoding characteristics (e.g., the drift of a 5 towards a 2, etc.) may be identified. Certain printing parameters may be corrected based on the results obtained by analysis of the performance database. If correction of the encoder is not possible, the host controller and/or printer operator may be signaled and informed about the problem. Manual diagnostics may the be performed and/or a hardware problem repaired by service personnel.